Bill

Activity 1: I have been watching our Northern Flickers intently this week. While we normally have only one at a time, we have had up to 5 at once in our yard, and they are performing amazing dancing and vocalization displays with each other. Sometimes, it is 2 males, sometimes 2 females, and most often mixed. So it is not just courtship, but also territorial. Fascinating. Activity 2: I have noticed for awhile that birds like chickadees and nuthatches fly in, grab a seed and fly to a tree to eat it, then repeat. Meanwhile, all the various finches just sit at the feeder for an extended time and eat, sometimes battling with others for the perch. The Juncos do both behaviors. Each species does it differently!

Activity 1: It is fascinating to see how different the Northern Cardinal and Blackburnian Warbler are in migration. Two birds that I am not familiar with out west, and to see the Cardinal stay resident all year long while the Warbler mostly only passes through the United States during migration. Hard to believe that they travel so far from northern South America all the way to Canada and back! Between the two Tanagers, I was interested that the difference is not just west vs east in the United States, but that the Scarlet Tanager goes almost completely into South America whereas the Western Tanager stops in Central America. Both a long way! I knew that the Anna's Hummingbirds stay put all year in our area - interesting that a few migrate into Mexico though - but the Rufous and Ruby-throated ones stay in the same general area in Mexico/Central America but then go in completely different directions for breeding. We just got our first Rufous hummers back a couple weeks ago in late March!

Activity 1: I was able to identify a Bewick's Wren and a Bushtit based on shape, with the Wren's tail attitude a clear differentiator. For Activity 2, I was able to differentiate a Downy Woodpecker, a Red-breasted Sapsucker and a Red-winged Blackbired easily based on the distribution of the black, red and white colors on their bodies. For Activity 3, I found a Robin digging with it's beak for worms in the garden dirt, a Spotted Towhee that was jumping back and forth to scratch open the surface of the ground for insects and a Dark-eyed Junco that was maneuvering through my patio pots to strip seeds off of last year's remaining dead flower stalks. One of my favorite birds right now is the Red-breasted nuthatch, which can be easily identified with it's distinctive black and white stripes on it's head with a chestnut colored belly, and it's extremely small stature with quick movements. The way that it hangs upside down from suet cakes or feeders as well as it's downward moving creeping on tree trunks is unique and it's cute little low volume nasally chattering is like nothing else in my yard! I love this bird!